Just a Normal Study Session
#1 of Fledgling Study Group
A young drake meets up with one of his clanmates and classmates to study
Here we go. Story time.
Knaster found his destination without much trouble. The young dragon flapped his wings at a steady pace, following the breeze as it blew between tall apartment towers. He had memorized the address he was headed to, and this area was familiar to him. He was currently in the outer limits of sector one, in one of the high-rise neighbourhoods owned by his clan, Taslin. Sector one was always busy, but neighbourhoods were still less busy compared to the crowded markets and ever bustling business towers of the commercial area.
Here in the housing zone, every apartment tower looked broadly similar in style, yet each had its own specific architectural flair ranging from blocky or rounded, with a palate of matching colours adorning every façade. Every apartment tower also had its own number, which was marked out on the roof and on the sides to be easily seen. Knaster spotted the building he was looking for and he went into a smooth glide for final approach. Flying was always a pleasure, but today he flew with a specific purpose in mind--this was a_business_ flight, as much as a fledgling like him might possibly be considered to have business.
Balconies and ledges extended out from all sides and most every level of every building, but Knaster carefully adjusted his wings to land right on the flat roof top of this apartment tower. Touching down on the concrete, he hopped forward a few times to cut all momentum before carefully folding in his wings.
The grey-scaled dragon fledgling took a deep breath of the afternoon air, then he reached into his flight harness and pulled out a small scrap of paper on which he'd scribbled down his destination for this afternoon. After double checking the address, he walked over to the elevator lobby.
Two dragon fledglings were lazing about in a bedroom--one on a floor cushion, the other on a bed. Caden was sitting down on her floor cushion in front of an easel, and she was slowly using the tip of her tail as a brush to paint out the room's other occupant.
The other fledgling in the room was the same age, and her name was Glecion. Whereas Caden's scales were a leafy green, Glecion's colouration was a dark ashy grey broken up by paler streaks of green running under her wings. Not that Glecion would have been able to truly understand her own colours, or indeed any colours. A strip of cloth was wrapped around her eyes since she was blind.
Caden could see, and her gaze alternated between two things--her friend sitting down on the bed, and the sheet of paper which she was trying to fill with enough form and colour that it would convert into a portrait. Caden had her tail curled around her body, using its dextrous, prehensile tip as a brush, but her latest stroke didn't turn out quite how her mind had envisioned it. A soft, subtly irritated hiss escaped from her jaws. "Tss."
Glecion heard Caden's irritation. She was supposed to be keeping still in her seated pose, but her ears twitched in Caden's direction. "How goes your painting?" she asked, barely moving her mouth.
"Not great," Caden grumbled.
A slight grin curled across Glecion's snout. "Oh? I like the look of it."
"Hah." Caden chuckled softly. The Glecion in her painting had a blindfold over her eyes just as the real one did, though whether the portrait shared her friend's casual sense of humour was still to be determined. It was certainly a challenge--Caden wanted to capture the essence of how her friend looked, not emphasizing or neglecting any important aspects. To paint a portrait of Glecion without her blindfold would be to ignore a very basic element of who she was, and would literally be painting a different person. "I guess it's not bad. It should be almost done, and yet I can see so many things I want to change and improve," Caden decided. She squinted at Glecion, then resumed her artistry.
After just a few more strokes, the ding of a bell made her pause. Glecion's ears twitched again, though at least she hadn't moved her head. "Is that the doorbell?"
"Sure sounds like it," Caden replied. She used her tail tip to make another series of strokes, darkening the vertical lines of green on her painting to better depict shadowing on the painted Glecion's side.
"Are you going to get the door?" Glecion asked.
Caden made a noncommittal noise. "Ehhh." This was her home and her parents were both busy at work, as usual, but she didn't particularly feel like finding out who was at the door. "It's probably just some salesperson or a surveyor. If it's important they'll ring the bell again."
"Mh." Glecion's head moved just a fraction, as if she had wanted to nod but stopped herself at the last moment.
Caden kept painting. She wiped her tail clean and was about to dip it in a different paint from her palette when the doorbell rang again. "Ding!!"
"They rang again. Must be important," Glecion said.
"I'll be the judge of that." Caden put down her palette and got to her feet. "Stay right there, Glecion--right in that pose. I'll go check the door."
"Ok!" Glecion nodded, then she frowned. "Oh, bother. I moved my head. Lost the pose already..."
Caden grinned, and she strolled out of her bedroom and down the corridor.
Knaster had been wondering if he'd gotten the wrong address. This apartment matched the address on his slip of paper, but after no one answered the door he was beginning to wonder if he'd just been given the wrong address by his clan adviser.
About twenty seconds after he'd rung the doorbell a second time, and about ten seconds before he was about to do it a third time, he finally heard the clink of dragon claws against tile. There was a brief pause as the latch was undone, then the front door swung half open to reveal another young dragon just about his age.
Caden looked him over through the crack in the door. Her eyes widened slightly, then narrowed again. "Oh, it's you."
"Yes, it's me." Knaster reached into a pouch of his flight harness and checked his pocket watch. He had made the scheduled appointment precisely. "Right on time. Not early, not late."
"That's great," Caden replied, with just enough disdainful sarcasm added to be audible. "Hello, Knaster."
"Hello, Caden." Knaster dipped his head in a proper bow, which Caden didn't return. The two young dragons considered each other through the half-open door. "Your parents aren't home, I assume?" Knaster asked.
"No. They're busy. My father's running some interclan meeting with the Mintaka wingleads, and my mother's off in the Outer Colonies," Caden replied. "You know how it is."
"I know how it is," Knaster agreed, and he did. Both he and Caden were from the same clan, Taslin, and their parents were all wingleaders for the clan. The two young fledglings weren't related by blood, but they both went to the same school, and they also shared an understanding that parents who were busy doing work for the clan had less time to oversee their children, especially now that said children were fledglings capable of more independence. "So can I come in?" Knaster asked, after another moment of silence. "I also assume you know why I'm here."
Caden was still in the doorway, and she didn't move to let him in. "I didn't actually think...? Listen, Knaster, are you actually going to do this?"
Knaster frowned slightly. "Yes? Drak Izic told me that your grades aren't doing so well, and I'm supposed to meet you once or twice a week so we can revise and catch up on schoolwork."
Caden waved her paw dismissively. "Yes, yes. I know. It's about helping out a fellow clan member, and doing networked socializing, or whatever. But you don't actually _have_to do this."
This suggestion confused Knaster. "But... I do. I was specifically told to study with you by Drak Izic, and I agreed to do it."
Caden shook her head. "Listen--yes, of course you're a good, hardworking, enthusiastic young fledgling who's eager to help out the clan. It's always good to add some sort of extracurricular positivity to your list of life experiences, isn't it? So when our dear, overbearing clan advisor suggested that you ought to do some community service helping a clanmate to study, of course you had to agree. But we don't actually need to waste our time. We can just say that you're spending a few hours studying with me every week, and Izic won't be any the wiser."
"I..." Knaster had spent the past few hours tidying up his school notes, except this was not what he'd been preparing for. "But... it's... your grades? Don't you want to do better? I can help you. It's not a waste of time if we study together."
"My grades are adequate and I'm passing my lessons. No, better than that! I'm doing better than passing, and I'm just fine, thank you very much."
"But... you could still be doing better?" Knaster suggested.
"Knaster, I know you're a smart person, but I don't need or want your help," Caden said firmly.
"But... I... Drak Izic said... I was told..." Knaster felt a strange mix of emotions. He felt obligated by duty to properly complete the task he'd been assigned and accepted, yet at the same time he couldn't force Caden to study if she was so opposed to the idea. "If you don't want my help, I'll just... alright."
Caden nodded. "We're in agreement then. If Izic, your parents, my parents, or any other wingleader asks, then just say we spent two hours studying math. No need to actually waste our time on it. Goodbye!"
Caden swung the door shut, and Knaster was left standing on the doorstep. "I... Ok. Fine. I guess that's... fine." Even he didn't enjoy studying--he found it purposeful and necessary, but it wasn't a hobby or a recreation. Now he had his whole afternoon free to do whatever he wanted to, yet that didn't feel as fun a thought as it ought to have been. Indignation, disappointment, and just a small hint of anger crossed his mind, but there was nothing else to do or say. Turning around, Knaster strolled over to the elevator lobby and jabbed the button to call the carriage that would take him back to the roof.
Breathing a sigh of satisfied relief, Caden turned around from the front door, and then she saw Glecion. The blind fledgling had stuck her head out from Caden's bedroom. "Who was that?"
"Just... just someone from my class at school. His name is Knaster. He's also in my clan too," Caden explained.
Glecion shook her head, and Caden had to wonder how much her friend had overheard. "So one of your schoolmates and clanmates comes to offer his help to you with your schoolwork, and you slam the door in his face?"
"I... I didn't _slam_the door in his face," Caden insisted, though some of her relief converted to guilt. "The wind blew the door shut, which is why it sounded like it slammed," she tried, but that excuse sounded weak even as she said it.
Glecion just shook her head again. "I don't have a clan, but if I did, I would not be mean to a fellow clanmate who was just trying to help. Don't be rude."
"I wasn't being rude!" Caden shifted her weight between her paws. She had long outgrown the point where her parents could still easily guilt or manipulate her into behaving as they thought was proper and honourable, yet her clanless, blind friend did it with ease. Caden happily defied her parents, her clan's wingleaders, and even her teachers and other figures of authority, but Glecion could make her feel shame in a way no one else could.
"Caden." Though Glecion's unseeing eyes were shrouded by her blindfold, Caden could still sense her friend's judgemental glare. "Be nice. Your clan is trying to help you. Even if you don't like studying, you should appreciate the effort. There are problems with the big clans, but this isn't one of those problems."
"Nggrrrhhh..." Caden made a noise best described as a sad whimper, perhaps more appropriate for a hatchling than a fledgling. She would never had made that noise around anyone else, and in fact as a matter of prideful principle she would never had changed her mind for almost anyone else, but admittedly Glecion was probably right about this. "Why do you have to be respectful and... and gracious, Glecion? Gahhh! And now it's rubbing off on me because I feel guilty."
Glecion shrugged, making her wings bob up and down on her back. "If someone slammed the door in my face, I wouldn't remember them fondly. Make friends, not enemies."
"Huuuuuuh." Caden let out a prolonged sigh and unlatched the door. With head low and tail dragging against the floor, she went to go fix her mistake.
Knaster stepped into the elevator carriage and shifted the control lever to indicate roof level. Just as the door were sliding shut, a leafy green-scaled fledgling scampered over and hurriedly beckoned for him to wait. "Knaster!" Caden exclaimed. "Wait!"
Knaster stopped the elevator from moving off, and the doors obligingly slid back open. "Oh, it's you," he said, imitating Caden's previously dismissive tone.
Caden glared at him for a moment, but then she bit her tongue and glanced away. "Knaster, I just want to... express my regret if I came off as rude." The female fledgling looked as uncomfortable and awkward as Knaster had ever seen her. "If you... really want to help me study, I appreciate that thought."
For a moment, Knaster's jaw dropped half open in shock. From knowing Caden in school, he'd expected her general chilly indifference to be completely unrelenting, yet here she was apologizing and sounding humble. What a truly unexpected surprise. "You're welcome...? I was just trying to help. Drak Izic told me that he often tries to get fledglings from our clan to study together to improve their grades. He says its good networking."
A sliver of fiery irritation crossed Caden's otherwise meek expression. "Izic needs to stop trying to micromanage our lives. My parents are bad enough." She shook her head and stared at Knaster. "Just... never mind, forget I said that. Knaster, thank you for offering to help me. Why don't you come back and..." Caden grit her teeth as if she was being tortured by every word she was saying. "We can... study. Since you took the effort to fly all the way across clan territory to come here, why don't we just study... this one time. Only this one time. Never ever again."
Knaster absolutely had not expected this turnaround. Even as he'd been waiting for the lift, he'd been mentally consoling himself that he should have fully expected Caden not to want to study--after all, their clan had all but demanded that she revise more and even given him specific hours to come study with her. He certainly understood why Caden might not appreciate that forced control and having her life intruded upon, even if it was by their own clan and for a good cause. Knaster hefted the flight harness pouch resting over his back right between his wings, which contained a textbook, various lecture notes, tutorial sheets, and other studying material. "Are you sure? Because you have to put in the effort too. We both have to study--I can't learn on your behalf."
Caden rolled her eyes and fixed Knaster with a dejected look. "Wow, what a responsible way to phrase it. Oh, yes. Certainly. Since you insist. I sure do love studying..." she muttered sarcastically.
Knaster nodded, and he smiled slightly with his neck frill perking up halfway. Caden did not smile. She gestured with her wing, and he stepped out of the elevator car and headed back to her home.
"This is your fault," Caden grumbled, glancing to Glecion as she strolled back through the apartment's front door. "This is all your fault."
Glecion was still in Caden's bed room, sticking her head out the doorway. She tiled her head, and her ears flicked. "I take it you apologized to your clanmate?"
"Unfortunately I did, and I even was so gracious as to agree to let him do this tuition thing today. What a lovely waste of our afternoon. Huuuh." Caden let out another prolonged sigh. She gestured between the two other fledglings. "Knaster, this is my friend Glecion. Glecion, this is my clanmate and classmate, Knaster. He's going to be tutoring me, I suppose."
"Hello." Knaster bowed his head towards Glecion in a polite greeting. Caden saw Knaster do a quick double take when he noticed that Glecion was blind, but he remained polite. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too!" Glecion happily replied. She bowed her head as well, not because she had seen Knaster bowing at her, but simply because Glecion was a friendly person. "So you're here to give Caden tuition? You must be smart!"
"Oh, no. I'm not really giving tuition--I'm not a professional or anything. I'm just a fellow student and we're going to have a simple study session where we revise together. We'll just try our best to catch up on math today." Knaster turned to Caden. "Although Drak Izic also mentioned that you might need some help with a few other subjects. But for today let's focus on math, and maybe next time we can revise another topic like statistics or applied magic."
"There will be no next time!" Caden muttered under her breath. Louder, she said, "Come on then. Let's get this over with." Caden led Knaster to her room, and she lazily gestured for him to sit down on one of the floor cushions in front of her table.
Knaster obligingly went to sit down, though he briefly paused to look over Caden's easel and her half-done painting of Glecion. "Wow. You painted this?"
"I did. It's not done yet." Caden started tidying up her room, clearing space near her table so that they could sit down and study.
Knaster's gaze followed the painting even as Caden shifted her easel aside. He then glanced towards Glecion, who had gone back to Caden's bed and was now lying down. "That's a great painting. I see now why art is your best subject."
"It's not a good painting. Not yet. I could make it so much better," Caden replied. She briefly paused and threw another irritated look towards Knaster. "Wait, how do you know that art is my best subject? Let me guess--Izic told you my grades? That intrusive prat."
Knaster shrugged. "Drak Izic, who I should remind you is not a prat and is a wingleader first-class, did tell me your grades, yes. That's the sort of thing they do in his department. And if it makes it better, it wasn't just you. He's got my school records too, as well as the records for all the young dragons in our clan and he's doing all sorts of ranking and analyses of how everyone is performing academically, across all the many schools and classes."
"That doesn't make it any better." Caden carefully placed her easel at the side of the room, keeping the unfinished painting facing out of the direct sunlight streaming in through her bedroom windows. "Sorry about this, Glecion. We'll have to finish up another day."
"No problem!" Glecion cheerfully replied. "You should go ahead and study math! Math is a hard topic... I find it difficult too. I'll just listen in on you two as you revise."
Caden shook her head. "Oh, no, no, no. This was your fault, so you will be involved as well. Come here!" Trotting over to her bed, she grabbed the blind fledgling's wing and placed it over her back so she could lead Glecion over to the table. There were three floor cushions in front of her table--Caden had Glecion sit down on one side, then she sat down in the middle and gestured for Knaster to also sit down on her other side.
Knaster took out a document folder from his flight harness, which contained a neat stack of mathematics notes from school. "Right. I suggest we begin by revising the topic we learned just last week--differentials. Unless you have a better idea?"
Caden shrugged her shoulders, making her wings bob up and down. "Whatever."
"Ok then." Knaster laid out his paperwork on the table, then he glanced at Caden. "Uh, Caden, you do at least have the lesson handouts given by Drak Vinatar, I hope?"
"Differentials. Yeah." Caden stood up and reached over the table to rifle through a stack of papers. She grabbed a slightly crumpled stack of notes that were similar in form to Knaster's notes and tossed them onto the table.
Glecion stretched out a paw to reach for her own flight harness, which she had taken off and put down beside the table when she'd first arrived at Caden's home. To Caden's mild surprise, Glecion then took out her own set of notes--though perhaps it wasn't a surprise Glecion had math notes with her, since she'd come to Caden's home right after finishing school.
Caden grinned, and she compared all their math notes. She and Knaster went to the same school together in sector one, whereas Glecion went to a different school in sector forty, but their math teachers all followed a common syllabus set by Education Division and their notes were all the same basic printout. Knaster's notes were filled with meticulous detail he had obviously added in class, and he had also gone to the trouble of trying all the example questions. Caden's notes were comparatively more crumpled and sparsely filled, as she hadn't done most of the questions. Glecion's notes were perhaps the most interesting--they had been printed extra large with some sort of special ink and paper combination that made all the words and diagrams raised up, allowing the blind fledgling to read them by touch.
Knaster curiously raised his head to look over at Glecion's notes too. He looked particularly surprised when he saw the letterhead containing her school's logo. "Oh. Um, your name was Glecion, right?"
"Right!" Glecion happily replied.
"Glecion, you go to Eastwind Intermediate Educationary? Don't you... Isn't there a school specifically for blind dragons?" Knaster asked.
Glecion chuckled. "Heh. There is. It's called the Lighthouse Academy. But that's mainly for blind dragons who have gotten their magical affinity and are learning vocational skills. They do offer a dedicated tuition program for younger dragons, but I can't afford that."
"Oh. Your clan can't afford it?" Knaster asked, then he immediately looked uncomfortable for having asked that question. Clans were a basic unit of drakken society, and it was considered impolite to disparage another dragon's clan, even by the implication that someone else's clan was poor.
Glecion shook her head with no trace of offence. "Nope! I don't have a clan. The clanless shelter does get enough funding to send me to normal school, though. All my teachers at Eastwind are super helpful, and they help me print notes that I can read by touch."
Knaster appeared even more uncomfortable than before, which made Caden happy. Caden and Knaster both came from Taslin, which was one of the biggest and most powerful clans in Avaeria with huge influence and resources. There wasn't officially a hierarchy between clans, but some clans were definitely stronger than others, and the tiny, tiny minority of dragons who had no clan at all were those who had the least. Yet despite having the least, they weren't supposed to be the least, since society claimed that every dragon was supposed to have value. In Caden's experience, most dragons in her clan didn't seem to want to think about that inequality, which was why she liked seeing Knaster put on the spot by hearing directly from her clanless friend.
"It's just not fair, is it, Knaster?" Caden said. "See--I'm not the one who really needs help with math, when there are poor clanless fledglings like Glecion who would benefit from your help."
Glecion laughed again. "Haha. Caden! It's not like I'm doing badly in my schoolwork. In fact, from how you were grumbling about your math quiz results the other day, I'd say you need Knaster's teachings just as much as I do. Don't you try and escape your study session."
Knaster squinted at Caden suspiciously. "Yeah, don't you try and escape, Caden! The whole point of this study session was to improve your grades. Uh, though of course I would be glad to help you too, Glecion. We can all learn together."
"Oh, yes. All learn together. What a lovely idea," Caden agreed, though she couldn't keep the sarcasm from her tone.
"Yes, very lovely. It's lovely that everyone here is so enthusiastic and eager to learn," Knaster replied, proving that Caden wasn't the only one capable of using sarcasm.
In stark comparison to the other two fledglings, Glecion was cheerful, earnest, and the opposite of sarcastic. "Yep! Let's learn."
With a nod, Knaster flipped open his math notes. "Ok. Chapter six is on differential techniques..."
All things considered, Knaster reflected, it was an afternoon spent well.
Though he was supposed to be here to study with Caden, the green-scaled female fledgling had quickly grown bored and started to fidget. Eventually Caden had excused herself to go to the kitchen and get refreshments for all three of them, and Knaster had ended up sitting in the middle and studying with Glecion instead.
The blind fledgling was far more interested in schoolwork than Caden, and Knaster found it interesting to interact with her. They could talk and discuss the math, but for Knaster to show Glecion anything on paper he had to use a special pot of ink that she carried around with her. Glecion's ink was a thickened, special mixture that reacted with paper to create a raised imprint, letting her feel and check whatever had been written.
When Caden returned she was pushing a small cart that had three glasses along with a jug of chilled water, and also a plate of pastries and jam biscuits. She poured out drinks for all three of them, then offered the snacks. Knaster smiled to himself. Caden did know how to be a gracious host--when she wanted to be, at least. He took a biscuit and snapped it up with thanks, but it would take more than baked goods to distract him from studying.
At Knaster's prompting, Caden reluctantly continued to revise and she did several example questions from her notes, but she was more interested in having Knaster give her all the answers for their math homework. Stubbornly Knaster insisted that they should solve the math homework together instead of him doing it all and simply giving Caden the answers, and Glecion happily concurred.
After two hours had elapsed, they had finished revising last week's math lesson and also finished up on homework. Knaster then wanted to go on and revise this week's lesson--Glecion agreed, while Caden simply put her head down on the table, covered it with her wing, and fell asleep right there and then.
Overall though, as afternoon became evening and the fledglings finally decided to all call it a day, Knaster judged that it had been time well spent. He'd bolstered his own understanding of his school lessons, and he'd certainly helped Glecion too. Caden surely had learnt some things as well, even if she was less motivated to study. Overall, Knaster thought it had been a clear success.
"This was good," he declared, putting down all his notes and nodding. "Great job, everyone. This felt very productive. I hope we've all learned something today. That should be enough for the day?"
"This was good! Thank you!" Glecion finished off one last example math question, and she grinned. The tip of her tail was still wet with ink, and her paws moved quickly as she felt over the examples in her notes, checking what she had just written. "This was really fun."
Caden had her head on the table, buried underneath her notes. "Graaghh," she groaned. "I'm dying of boredom here. My mind is melting from math..."
Glecion nodded again, ignoring Caden's complaining. "I get the lesson now. The equations make sense! Thanks for explaining everything, Knaster. It's much better to learn when I can ask you questions, instead of trying to figure out what my teachers are saying without seeing the board."
Knaster couldn't help but smile, his neck frill perking up. It filled him with a strange sense of fulfilment to help someone in need--Glecion surely, but Caden too despite her grumbling. Knaster felt better from having spent his afternoon helping them. "You're welcome, Glecion! I think we all benefited from this. I learn things too just from rereading my notes and discussing it with you. Will I be seeing you again later in the week when Caden and I have another study session?"
"Oh, definitely. I will absolutely be here when we do this again!" Glecion agreed.
"Graaghh," Caden repeated. She raised and dropped her head against her table with a thump. "Once! We were only supposed to do this once! I should not have changed my mind about slamming the door in your face, Knaster."
Glecion giggled. "Heheh. She doesn't mean that. Caden is actually very grateful and happy about us all studying together. Let's do this again! And I know someone else who would love to join in our next study session... Just like everything in life, studying is better with friends."
Knaster laughed too. "Ha. Thanks for the study session, then. Nice to meet you, Glecion, and good job studying to you too, Caden. I'll see you both again in a few days."
TO BE CONTINUED
Next chapter HERE. Why not speculate widely about what will happen?